Letters to the editor: Sept. 28

We insist on wars even as poverty persists

In 2011, we spent $1.1 trillion on the military, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the group One Minute for Peace. We are spending more on the military than all the other major powers put together.

On the other hand, 15 percent of our own people live in poverty. One in five children in our country go to bed hungry. Our college students are carrying a trillion dollar debt. It is getting more difficult for students with limited means to obtain higher education.

One half of the world's population lives in poverty ($2 or less per day). One in six people on Earth go to bed hungry. Twenty-five percent of the world's population lives in substandard housing or are homeless. Some people go through life with no professional medical care whatsoever. Their umbilical cord isn't even attended to when they are born.

We are spending more than a trillion dollars a year fighting terrorism and fighting under the pretense of "fighting for freedom."

When I think of freedom, I think of the freedom to be adequately fed, clothed and housed. I include the freedom to have health care and the freedom to get an education to improve my lot in life.

One half of the world's population does not have access to these freedoms, and as long as these conditions exist, all the military might we can muster will not prevent terrorism.

Darrell Thompson

West Lafayette

Being called out for being 'un-Christian'

I don't like to talk religion. No matter what's said, someone's offended. I went to Bible school here. Became agnostic. But since returning to town eight years ago, religious hubris has confronted me, twice.

Six years ago, I was recovering from a massive stroke. I was in agony and in loud and foul voice. A woman stormed in and snapped that I was being "un-Christian." My wife, who was struggling to save my life and her sanity, told the lady where she could put her offended Christianity.

Recently, at a Lafayette social services agency, it happened again. We had a 9 a.m. appointment; after 30 minutes whispers came: the judge wasn't even there. Caught in a system designed to humiliate both the needy and the staff, such frustrations are common. Feeling abused, we were louder than we should have been, but the staff were dealing with us in a professional manner. Things were calming down when a strange woman felt required to bark that we were "not behaving as good Christians." My wife responded that she was frankly not interested in being a good Christian because she was Jewish.

As for myself, the idea that any situation could be improved by a third party informing angry or distressed individuals that they are morally superior to you ... well, enough Bible study stuck in my head to know that saying something like that slams headlong into at least one of the seven deadly sins: pride.

Shame on you, madam.

Kimit Muston

Lafayette

Do your research to find the real Donnelly

Indiana needs a senator like state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who will stand up for the people. When the Obama administration flouted bankruptcy law during the Chrysler collapse, it was Mourdock that showed steadfastness. Mourdock alone did not succumb to pressure from the Obama administration to drop claims to money in Indiana's pension funds. Mourdock stood courageously for what was right for Indiana's teachers and police. Eventually the Supreme Court agreed.

As a practicing physician, I fear the future of medicine if we cannot repeal much of Obamacare. This 2,000-plus-page law is generating thousands of new regulations, along with many new middle-class taxes. Bureaucrats, and not the doctor/patient partnership, will drive many medical decisions beyond 2013. A Republican Senate with Mourdock representing Indiana can reverse this catastrophe.

Now that he is running for the Senate, liberal congressman Joe Donnelly is trying to hoodwink people into believing that he is moderate. Ignore Donnelly's TV commercials and look at his voting record - one must come to the conclusion that Donnelly is not a moderate. A vote for Donnelly means you support bigger government, more debt, high unemployment, less purchasing power of our paychecks and government health care.

In contrast, Mourdock stands for the principles of limited government and personal responsibility. I urge my fellow citizens to ignore TV propaganda and do their own research. Once such research is completed, most fair-minded Hoosiers will conclude that a vote for Mourdock is the wise choice.

Andrew R. Fischer

Lafayette

Good quote, but Lincoln never said it

A quote allegedly by Abraham Lincoln, and cited in a Sept. 27 letter to the editor, is actually by the Rev. William John Henry Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister and public speaker. A booklet of his lectures and maxims was published in 1916 and includes these quotes that have many times been misleadingly attributed to Lincoln. Please see: www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln/prosperity.asp.